1944 ŠIBENIK, Official letter

Official letters franked with 1944 Šibenik local provisional issue stamps were not known until now. Recently, two such letters were found, both with the indictments from the same court trial.

1944 Šibenik local provisional issue, official court letter with advice of receipt, properly franked, sent from Šibenik (14.X.44). Undelivered because of the absence of the recipient. Certificate Vilfan. 

Back side of the letter with the cancellation and handwritten message from the postman.

Advice of receipt sheet is still adhered to the cover.

1944 ŠIBENIK, Stationery

Italian stationery were overprinted with the Kn. 2 and additional Kn.1 war tax surcharge. Italian inscriptions and coat-of-arms were overprinted with Croatian replacements.

1944 Šibenik local provisional issue, stationery, properly franked with 2 kn and 1 kn war tax surcharge, sent from Šibenik (17.VII.44) to Slavonska Požega. From the well known Novak correspondence.

1943 SPLIT, Overprint on the back

Only a few overprint specialities exist for this issue: 

• inverted overprint (Sas. 20 and Sas. 22)
• double overprint (Sas. 11 and Sas. 14)
• overprint penetrated on the back (Sas. 17)

1943 Split local unreleased issue for Dalmatia, 3.50 kn / 50 c, Sas. 17, overprint on the back. Certificate Zrinjščak.

1944 SENTA, Stationery

Two types of Hungarian stationery (P112 and P108) were overprinted with cliche shown below.

Overprint used for stationery.

1944 Senta, local provisional issue, stationery P112, 20f local rate.

1944 Senta, local provisional issue, fieldpost stationery P108, 20f local rate.

1944 Senta, local provisional issue, stationery P112, 30f (20+10) domestic rate. Note that overprint was done across the stamps.

According to Veličković and Verner, each of three stationery has an additional variant with the first-day cancellation in red (CTO 20.X.44).

1941 BANJA LUKA, Fakes

A few days ago, 1941 Banja Luka fake was sold on one of the eBay auctions...

eBay auction: 36 bids and a final price of 183.50$ shows that customers did not know it was a fake.

Genuine stamp from position 17 (left) and fake from the auction (right). Fake overprint is narrower and lower.

Checking just the first line - genuine (above) and fake (below) - the difference is apparent. See also details of "S", "b" and "d"...

1945 DB Laibach, Proof on carton paper

Proofs on carton paper are the rarest items in this issue. Especially color strips with plate numbers.

1945 German occupation of Laibach, unreleased issue, proofs on carton paper, color strip without and with plate number.

1945 MOSTAR, Damaged stars

Damaged stars are common, especially those in the red color and on the values that were overprinted at the end. Probably the most damaged star is a star that you can find at Mi.5 Velebit at position 59.

          

Star from position 59, at the beginning and at the end of the overprinting process.

Plate distribution of damages. Darker rectangles represent positions with larger damages.

At the end of overprinting 44% of all stars have been damaged.

          

Another example of heavily damaged star - Mi.2 Jajce, position 1.

1945 DB Laibach, Famous Slovenians

Each of six famous man exists in seven different colors. All together we have 42 different stamps (6 * 7 = 42).

1945 German occupation of Laibach, unreleased issue, complete set in color strips.

1945 GUŠTANJ, Cover

Immediately after the end of WWII the special canceller was used in Guštanj (german Gutenstein, now Ravne na Koroškem).

1945 Guštanj porto provisorium, official letter sent from Ljubljana (28.8.45) to Guštanj with arrival postage due stamps (30 pf Maribor local provisional issue and 0,50 din regular DFJ issue) cancelled with "Guštanj," / "PORTO".

Note that "Guštanj," ends with a comma. This is because it was used as a prefix for other cancellers, usually for "PORTO".

WWII Kun's Partisan

I finally found a photo of the original Kun's Partisan essay. And, it looks just like mine!

1944 Kun's Partisan, original signed by Mirko Verner.

1944 DB Brač, Cover

Only seven covers exist - all were philatelically motivated and all were sent from the Nerežišče.

1944 German occupation of Brač, local provisional issue, cover from Nerežišče to Ljubuški (16.V.44). Certificate Brunel.

1945 SPLIT, 70th Anniversary

Today (01.03.2015) we mark the 70 year anniversary of the Split provisional issue. First set of 9 values (Mi 1-9) was dispatched for use on 1.III.1945. For more information, see this post.

And yes, today is also the 70th anniversary of the Cetinje local provisional issue.

1941 NDH Nationalisation - Dubrovnik

Unfortunately, only a fragment, but still a nice example of 1941 NDH nationalisation on the "Young Petar" stamp...

1941 NDH Nationalisation, letter fragment with "Young Petar" 2 Din stamp, sent from Dubrovnik (24.V.41).

"Država Hrvatska" Type I rubber stamp enlarged.

1945 SARAJEVO, Postal stationery- Type III

Type III is the most scarce of all types and subtypes of the 1945 Sarajevo provisional issue cards. Only a few are known.

1945 Sarajevo local provisional issue, postal stationery, type III, unused.

The most notable difference in comparison to type I and type II is much larger distance between the bar and the five-pointed star. 

For the description for type I and II, please see post: http://alesstamps.blogspot.com/2014/07/1945-sarajevo-postal-stationery.html.

1942 NDH Red Cross, first day items

Four different first day items were prepared for this issue: two covers and two special commemorative cards.

Two different cancellations were used: black oval and red circle.

FDC with black oval cancellation.

FDC with red circle cancellation.

Small commemorative card.

Large commemorative card. Signed and numbered - No. 446 of  500. Unfolded!

1943 NDH Legionnaires, Ministerial album

In relation to the current situation in Ukraine - Croatian legionnaires have already fought on the Eastern Front.

1943 NDH Legionnaires, Ministerial album.

1943 NDH Legionnaires, Mi.107-110.

1944 DFJ, Vuk 2+3 stationery with message

I saw only two such postcards, both were unused and both with the same message on the back. I don't know if the message was prepared together with the original stationery or later with the DFJ provisional overprint.

1944 DFJ provisional issue, Vuk 2+3 din stationery with preprinted message on the back. Message was prepared for wounded soldiers in a military hospital in Smederevo.

HOWTO, Stamp Collecting Software

I just bought a new scanner and started to digitize my stamp collection. My goal is to create a database with each stamp individually. After one day of work, I can say that this will be very time consuming and tedious task. Unless I find a way to get myself 48 hours in a day, I need to do something to speed up this process.

Long time ago I worked on the development of image processing software, so I thought - maybe this will be a great opportunity to refresh my knowledge and have some fun too.

Let’s define our input as image with more or less randomly positioned stamps. 

Input image.

Step 1: Edge detection 

In theory, we know a number of edge detection filters, namely: homogeneity filter, difference filter, Sobel and Canny edge detection filter, etc. I decide to begin with the simplest one – the difference filter that finds edges by calculating the maximum difference between pixels in four directions around the processing pixel.

Edge detection - red line. 

Step 2: Quadrilaterals detection

Quadrilaterals (rectangles in our case) can be detected using Hough line transformation to find lines and then detect pairs of that lines that intersect with an angle of 90 degrees (approx.)

Quadrilaterals detection - yellow line.

Step 3: Extract individual item

Using quadrilaterals, we can calculate their bounding boxes and simply cut them out. All following steps are processed for all our cuts. 

Stamp extracted.

Step 4: Deskew (rotate) item

The rotation angle can be calculated from quadrilateral lines (as mean of all angles). Also Hough line transformation can be combined as a correction factor. In practice, getting angle is the most complicated operation in the whole process stack. But, when we have an angle, the rotation is trivial.

Stamp rotated.

Step 5: Fill background with transparent color

With last step we simply fill the background with transparent color. Flood fill algorithm is a way to go. Note that stamp image should be preserved in a format that supports transparency. My preferred format is PNG.

Stamp with transparent background.

I am now able to digitize my stamps for about fifty times faster! And, having images in such format brings a great deal of possibilities. Custom layouts are just one of them.

Row alignment layout.

Compact layout.

1945 MOSTAR, Shifted overprints

Normally, shifted overprints are considered as a random error and specialty. However, Mostar issue is not such a case! It is much more common to have stamp with a slightly shifted overprint than the centered stamp.

1945 Mostar local provisional issue, 30 / 3.50 Kn.

Centered overprints are much rarer than shifted ones.

Overprint displacement increases in proportion to the distance from the center of the sheet and have its maximum on all four corners (positions 1, 10, 91 and 100). 

1945 Mostar local provisional issue, 30 / 3.50 Kn, complete sheet.

Only nine complete sheets remained (one per Mi. 1, 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 17).

1942 NDH Red Cross, Ministerial album

It is nice to see that such old album survives all that time. More than 70 years after the issue and still in MINT condition.

1942 NDH Red Cross, Ministerial album. Certificate Wieneke.

1942 NDH Red Cross Mi.86-90 and postal tax Mi.Z1.

WWII Kun's Partisan

In April 1944, the academic prof. Đorđe Andrejević - Kun prepared a conceptual sketch for the first Yugoslavian stamp. Only 20 hand-made copies were made from the pear wood cliché with the burgundy color on darkly yellow paper. Only a few (if any) remains.

Not sure if my is original or not! Definitely looks different than the "standard" forgeries. I would be grateful for any information you can give me.

1944 Kun's Partisan

at approx. 300% (size of content rectangle is 1,87 x 3,12 cm).

1941 NDH Nationalisation - Dubrovnik

Two different provisional rubber stamps have been used at the Dubrovnik post office. Both contain the words "Država Hrvatska". The easiest way to distinguish them is by measuring their length: Type I is 36,5 mm long, whereas Type II is 72 mm long.

1941 NDH Nationalisation, Business letter, properly franked with 1 Din, sent from Dubrovnik (30.V.41) to Slavonska Požega. Certificate Zrinjšćak.

Stamps overprinted with the "Država Hrvatska" provisional rubber stamp Type I.

1943 SPLIT, Blocks of sixteen

Overprinting was done by the state printing house in Zagreb. It is known that only 10 denominations were returned into Split, other values (No. 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17) remained in Zagreb. So, we have a set with full version of 17 values (also called Zagreb version) and a subset version of 10 values (called Split version).

1943 Split local unreleased issue for Dalmatia, "Split version" of 10 values in blocks of sixteen. Complete set with the largest pieces that I know of.

1941 NDH Nationalisation - Požega

Using of old stationery from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was permitted for the full nine months after the declaration of an independent state of Croatia (10.IV.1941). Some of the post offices used rubber stamps or other provisional techniques for the identification with the new state. One of the examples is shown below.

1941 NDH Nationalisation, YU Kingdom stationery, properly franked with 2 Din, sent from Požega Slavonska (10.VII.41) to Ronov via Čáslav, Protektorát Čechy a Morava.

Stationery overprinted with the "Država Hrvatska" provisional rubber stamp.